1. Field of the Invention
The invention generally relates to printing systems, and in particular to the process of billing for the copies or prints produced by a customer of a printing system.
2. Description of the Related Art
Current printing systems such as electronic reprographic systems, copying machines or electronic printing machines are typically capable of counting pages. For customer records or for billing purposes, these systems comprise accounting mechanisms for computing the number of pages that are printed. Besides the copy count, these systems may further acquire other information for billing purposes such as measurements of the actual use of a wide range of system functions, including binding, scanning, stapling, stitching, shrink wrapping, etc. Further, the paper and toner consumption can be monitored. This information can then be used when generating the bill.
FIG. 1 illustrates the basic components of a conventional printing system. The printing system is controlled by controller 100 that receives image data from scanner 110 and outputs printing data to the printer 150. The printer 150 comprises a paper supply and a finisher for performing the above mentioned system functions.
The controller 100 includes an image input control 120 and image output control 140 for controlling the image data transfer from and to the system control 130. Further, there is a user interface 160 provided that may be a liquid crystal display or another kind of mini display in front of the printing system. The controller 100 further includes a memory 170 for storing product usage data indicating measurements of the actual use of the printing system, such as copy counts. Further, the controller 100 may include a network interface 180 for connecting the printing system to a local or global network or to a phone line.
A conventional billing process of such a printing system according to the prior art is illustrated in FIG. 2. The process starts with step 210 in which the customer reads the copy count. The customer then sends a hard copy document to the billing service in step 220 for getting the copy count over to the billing service, and the billing service generates a bill (step 230). The generated hard copy bill is then sent back to the customer in step 240, and the customer can now authorize the bill (step 250). If the customer authorizes the bill he initiates payment, for instance by sending a check or an authorization to debit from his account, to the billing service (step 260).
Another billing process according to the prior art is depicted in FIG. 3. In this process, the printing system transmits product usage information to the billing service via a phone line (step 310). The billing service then generates a bill based on the received information and sends the bill to the customer via a phone line in step 320. Then, the customer authorizes the bill and sends the authorized bill back to the billing service.
While the billing process of FIG. 3 improves over that of FIG. 2 in sending the data electronically via phone line, one draw back is still that a total number of three transmissions are required to perform one billing. As can be seen from FIG. 4, the prior art requires first to send product usage information from the printing system to the billing service, then send a bill from the billing service to the customer of the printing system, and finally send an authorization from the customer of the printing system to the billing service. Even if these steps were performed electronically, the process is susceptible to errors in each transmission. In case of transmission errors in at least one of the steps, the billing process cannot be reliably performed anymore. Further, it might be necessary to repeat a transmission what might delay the process.